By Kirsty Hewitson, VP Innovation at the National Nuclear Laboratory Significant challenges facing the UK nuclear industry are cost and timelines, both in terms of new build construction and dealing with legacy material during decommissioning programmes. If the UK is going to move away from fossil fuel energy production, and…

Scientists have successfully developed a technology that can harness muons – essentially heavy electrons derived from space particles – to detect and safely manage radioactive waste. The £7m project, led by scientists from National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL), the University of Glasgow and spin-off company Lynkeos Technology Ltd, could have major implications for…

A major breakthrough has been achieved in the Sellafield clean-up programme – and a Cumbrian company has played a key part. For the first time ever, empty nuclear fuel skips have been removed from the floor of the First Generation Magnox Storage Pond – one of the most hazardous…

Work has begun to remove Sellafield’s most hazardous material. Highly radioactive ‘liquor’ has been taken out of one of the oldest parts of the Magnox Swarf Storage Silo for the first time. The material has been inside the waste store for many decades. It was created when water was used…

Glasgow may have been bathed in glorious sunshine, but the focus for delegates attending the latest Game Changers event inside the University of Strathclyde’s Technology & Innovation Centre was very much on the challenges presented by Sellafield’s POCO teams and sector experts. As with all of the Game Changers challenge-led events,…

The Game Changers Innovation Programme have announced the next challenge-led briefing event in support of Sellafield’s decommissioning mission. Innovation in Post Operational Clean Out (POCO) will be held on Wednesday 16th May at the University of Strathclyde’s Technology and Innovation Centre in Glasgow.

Through the unique format of a Game Changers challenge-led event, innovators from a wide range of industry sectors were brought together to focus their thoughts on tackling the challenge of producing waste containers for Sellafield more quickly and at reduced cost, without compromising environmental and operator safety. As a result,…

The facilities at the Sellafield site don’t stop operating one day and go straight into decommissioning the next, so what does happen when operations come to an end? As we enter 2018, a date which spells the beginning of the end of reprocessing operations on the site, (Oxide reprocessing ends…

Transfer of remote handling technology from fusion industry into decommissioning. Building on their expertise in developing the world’s first remote handling equipment to operate inside a nuclear fusion reactor, Oxford Technologies Limited (OTL), the UK subsidiary of Veolia Nuclear Solutions (VNS), has been providing engineering solutions for a variety of…